introductions ; olivia joan

an introduction to the author.

Who am I?

I’ve tried to write this a few times - once as a series of bad jokes, once as an advertisement, once as an act of self-branding, and once as tragedy. Instead, I’m just going to give a list of semi-related facts about myself that all seem far too intimate for any kind of introduction.

I smell of myrrh and tonka. My favourite philosopher is Guy Debord. In the stack of books on my desk right now is Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, Men Who Hate Women by Laura Bates, Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault, Anhihilation by Jeff Vandermeer and Brainwyrms by Alison Rumfitt. My hands are covered in paint. I’ve chewed all of the skin off my bottom lip. I’ve never broken a bone. I can tie a hitch knot. My hobbies include miniature painting, singing, drag, and essayism. There’s a leopard print thong on my desk. My favourite song is Visions by Julia Pratt. I have the cluster of symptoms and behaviours that present themselves as autism when taken together. I’m a white genderweird lesbian. I’m 20.

interlude

I punch Jetty in the face.

“The fuck,” she says.

“It’s a mood swing,” I say helpfully.

Porpentine Charity Heartscape (2021), Relative Time Knife. Available at: https://tragickal.com/relative-time-knife/

Favourite Things

Red ties | Gothic fashion | Gothic storytelling | The relationship between Jesus and Judas | Symbolic cannibalism | Cliche dog metaphors | Neon phantasmagoria | Fashion | Personas | Guy Debord | Scene haircuts | Splatterpunk | Porpentine Charity Heartscape | Women’s inferiority | Haunted houses | Houses that haunt | Analyses of incest | Discussing power, hegemony, and violence | Queerness | Madness | Critical thinking about notions of mental illness and psychiatry | Death positivity | Alexander McQueen | The smell of sweat |

interlude

God save us from gloomy saints!

St. Teresa of Avila

Genres I Write In

• Horror

• Splatterpunk

• Gothic Lit

• Sci Fi

• Experimental Lit

• Family Tragedy

• Dystopia

• Queer Lit